Two industry-sponsored educators will join other
participants at a four-day conference at NASA's Kennedy
Space Center this week marking the launch of the Magellan
planetary spacecraft.

Some 200 educators from around the country will
participate in the conference, scheduled April 25-28 in
Orlando, Florida. The week concludes with the launch of
Atlantis on space shuttle mission STS-30, carrying the Venus
mapper spacecraft Magellan into space.

Martin Marietta Astronautics Group of Denver,
Colorado, which built the Magellan spacecraft, will host
Anthony W. Zaragoza, an astronomy and chemistry instructor at
West High School in Denver.

Diane Island, principal of Canyon Elementary School
in Santa Monica, California, will attend as a guest of Hughes
Aircraft Company of El Segundo, California, which built
Magellan's radar mapping instrument.

The conference is designed to give teachers and
educators background on current missions exploring the solar
system. In addition to science and math teachers at levels
from grade school through university, participants include
planetarium directors, science lecturers and science
education specialists.

Magellan will be the first NASA spacecraft launched
to explore another planet in more than a decade. It is also
the first of several planetary craft which will be initially
launched by NASA's space shuttle.

Mission plans call for the 7,604-pound Magellan
craft to be carried into Earth orbit in the cargo bay of the
space shuttle Atlantis, scheduled for launch April 28. The
shuttle's cargo bay will open and Magellan will be released.
A booster rocket attached to Magellan will then fire, sending
the unmanned craft on a 15-month cruise to the planet Venus.

The Magellan Launch Educators' Conference is
sponsored by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Public Education
Office with NASA's Educational Affairs Division and NASA
Kennedy Space Center's Office of Education and Awareness.

JPL manages the Magellan Project for NASA as part
of the space agency's program of solar system exploration.
Magellan is funded by NASA's Office of Space Science and
Applications.